


more than a feeling

by Cirkne



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Confessions, First Kiss, M/M, others are mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 07:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13026075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: “I don’t know if I should kiss you or push you off a bridge right now”"Can I pick?"





	more than a feeling

Richie’s laughing, head thrown back, at his own joke. He’s ridiculous like that. Loud. Radiant. He can’t sit still or keep quiet and his words always come out rushed like his thoughts are too fast for his lips to catch up to. He draws people to him, he is always the center of attention and he is always _there_ in the back of Bill’s mind. Like a song that he’s been stuck on for years. Bill always comes back to Richie. Everything does, he thinks. Them, racing their bikes down the street, laughing. Them, in his living room, sharing ice cream. Them, walking home in the rain, Richie’s voice louder than the storm. It comes to him in flashes. It’s bigger than everything one moment and then it fades and he’s left feeling like there’s something he’s missing. He keeps going back home thinking he left something in his room. He keeps _looking_ at Richie, the way he’s never looked at anyone. And Richie-

Richie is laughing in the cafeteria of their school. His curls longer than he’s ever grown them out before. His glasses still thick, still covering half of his face. Bill keeps thinking about what they would feel like against his face when he was kissing Richie. He keeps thinking his hands on Richie’s face. Richie’s lips. Richie’s stupid smile. Richie’s collarbones and rough fingers and ugly, obnoxious shirts 

And then, like always, Richie stops laughing and Bill loses the moment he was allowed to stare and he turns away before Richie catches him and when his best friends groan, he does too. 

“You fucking suck,” Stanley tells him, rolling his eyes and Bill knows the kind of look Richie gives him, a shit eating grin on his face, but he pretends to be focused on whatever book Ben has open on the cafeteria table and he ignores the way everything in his body yearns for Richie. 

“You _love_ me, Stanley,” Richie answers, easy and they all know it’s true even if Stanley looks offended at his words.

“Whatever,” he says, pushes Richie away from himself. Richie laughs again. A short sort of burst of emotion. The book Ben’s reading says something about a lake and a forest. Bill can’t focus. He blinks and it feels like everything gets both louder and further away somehow. He blinks again. Rests his hands on the table. 

“You ok, big Bill?” Richie asks because of course he’s the first to notice anything’s wrong and Bill swallows before he answers.

“I j-just n-need f-fresh air,” he says and stands before any of them can offer to leave with him. He hates when it gets like this. Too much all at once. His feelings too big in his chest, threatening to break his ribs. 

He calms, a little, once he pushes the doors of the school open and the sun hits his face. It’s just like him to be overwhelmed by his own affection. Overcome with thoughts of _this_ and _here_ and _now_.

And then the doors swing open again and Richie’s walking out, a cigarette pack in one of his hands and a lighter in another one.

“Fresh air,” he says, voice mocking, waving the pack between them and then he winks and Bill feels like he can’t breathe. He’s never been good at swallowing his feelings down, at pretending they don’t consume everything he is.

“I-I d-did mean f-fresh air, R-richie,” he tells him but Richie’s already finding place next to him, their elbows brushing against each other as he pulls out two cigarettes. He hands Bill one of them and waits, way too patiently, for Bill to press it between his lips. 

“It’ll calm you down,” he says, soft, when Bill doesn’t move. And then, as usual, backing away from any sign of intimacy, says “It calms down your mom.”

Bill doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry or break the cigarette in his hands and tell Richie to leave him alone. Instead, he turns to face him and blurts:

“I don’t know if I should kiss you or push you off a bridge right now,” he’s kind of breathless and he watches the way Richie’s face changes from the grin he has on after shitty jokes to the way he looks at them, usually when he’s tired, eyes full of affection, as Bill stumbles over his words but he doesn’t _stutter_ which, he thinks, means he’s lucky.

Richie flips his cigarette between his fingers and focuses his gaze on it and Bill wonders if he fucked everything up. If this thing between them has only felt like a thing to him and Richie’s going to be the one to ask him to leave him alone.

“Can I pick?” he asks, eyes still on the cigarette. He doesn’t sound as sure of himself as he usually does and Bill realizes that the reason he’s doing it is because he’s not any more confident about this than Bill is. 

For a moment they’re standing in silence, cigarettes in their hands. Richie keeps fidgeting with his. Bill tries to find the words to say _I’ve been in love with you since we were thirteen_ or _I can’t think about anything that’s not you_ without actually saying it. He ends up going with a

“Y-yes,” barely louder than a whisper. Richie looks at him again, his usual confidence back in the way he looks at Bill. 

“Then I vote you push me off a fucking bridge,” he says smiling and when Bill opens his lips to call him an idiot, leans in to kiss him. It turns out Bill can’t really tell what the glasses feel like against his face because his mind short circuits and all he can think about is pulling Richie closer. 

He ends up crushing the cigarette against Richie’s jacket but Richie doesn’t seem to mind, blows the smoke of his into Bill’s mouth, makes a joke about blowing and kisses Bill again when he says he fucking hates him.

**Author's Note:**

> title from u guessed it more than a feeling by boston
> 
> written for a prompt on tumblr find me there if u wanna birduris.tumblr.com


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